


When It Sinks, You Stand

by angeloncewas



Series: a divine gift or curse [5]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Imprisonment, Moral Ambiguity, Solitary Confinement, Unbeta'd, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29897292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloncewas/pseuds/angeloncewas
Summary: Plenty of people have visited Dream in prison. Sapnap, Ranboo, Bad, and of course, Tommy; each of them came looking for something.It's unclear what Technoblade hopes to find.-The barrier drops. Techno doesn’t move.Dream holds out his hand. “Potato?”
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: a divine gift or curse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195631
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	When It Sinks, You Stand

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [this song.](https://youtu.be/MEWbXgL171c) It's not particularly relevant, just stuff about life & death.

Everything smells like cleaner. Sharp and citrusy, the back of Dream’s throat stings each time he breathes in. He shuts his eyes against the light from the lava, which, combined with the chemical scent, only serves to make his head pound.

It’d taken way too long to clean the blood off of the obsidian; Sam had refused to send any more food until the stones were spotless.

Tommy’s dead and he’s somehow _still_ annoying.

Consciousness begins to slip away and Dream lets his head loll back. Sleep comes fitfully these days, some sort of rising bile in the back of his throat he can only force down when his body demands it.

He doesn’t dream - there are no fantasies in his little cell - and he’s not sure how long it’s been when he’s shaken from his dozing by a distinct shift in heat.

The lava wall is falling. Someone is coming.

Dream is vaguely surprised that Sam’s allowing visitors.

He stands up quickly, ignoring the way his joints protest in favor of pocketing some food and adjusting to the air. He can’t let himself be caught off guard.

The barrier rises and the bridge begins to click and standing there, drawing closer, is Technoblade.

They were allies, the last time they faced each other like this. Not friends, Dream had made that abundantly clear, but united individuals against a cause.

It was a good day. ‘The blood god’ lived up to his title; no one else could’ve razed a nation quite like they did.

That doesn’t explain why Techno’s decided to visit, unless he just really wants something to gawk at.

Free animal, caged man.

As Techno steps onto Dream’s side of the prison and the lava begins to fall back down, he stares blankly. Though Sam has clearly stripped him of his armor, he still looks giant under the inky black ceiling.

The barrier drops. Techno doesn’t move.

Dream holds out his hand. “Potato?”

Techno’s canines glint as his expression twists into some sort of feral smile. It’s the mark of a predator on a pig’s face and Dream instinctively reaches for his weapon before remembering that the most dangerous thing he had was a clock, and even that’s been taken from him.

“Eatin’ the food of the fae’ll trap you,” Techno remarks, his tone breezy.

Dream hides his smile behind a bite, his teeth scraping slightly against stiff yellow. “You’ve branched out. No more Theseus.”

“I told him to stay away from cliffs,” Techno says. It’s a rare moment of something like honesty and Dream isn’t sure what the point of it is. “I don’t think he was very good with metaphors.”

“Well, the prison _is_ called Pandora’s Vault.”

Dream’s fairly certain Sam’s gone, but it can never hurt to be careful, and Techno’s the type to appreciate his allusions, if nothing else. The prison was named long before it housed anything - good or evil - but in some ways, it’s been perfect foreshadowing.

Expression still devoid of emotion, Techno exaggerates his voice. “You’re not even gonna ask me how I’ve been?” It sounds like mock-outrage as it pierces Dream’s ears, humor forever on the jagged edge of his tongue.

“You don’t seem like you’d enjoy small talk,” Dream explains.

 _“You,”_ Techno declares, looking at and through him, “don’t seem like you’d enjoy much.”

Dream rolls the potato around in his hands and gets distracted by the smallest tremble of his fingertips, a dying leaf on an extended branch. He presses them in against the coarse skin and feels it split. His veins stick up and out, cobalt against pale knuckles.

There’s dirt under his nails. It’s his dirt. It belongs to him.

He drops what was probably meant to be his lunch and it rolls to one side as he swipes one nail under the other, a sense of urgency wrapping itself around his head. He’s halfway through his left hand when Techno interrupts with a quiet tap of his foot.

Dream sighs and the world lurches back into the correct focus. He laces his fingers together. “I need you to get me out.”

“Okay, uh, no.”

“...You _owe_ me.”

Techno shakes his head slowly, like he’s placating a small child and not just being deliberately difficult.

“The favor?” Dream reminds.

The laughter that comes is gruff and out-of-place - probably somewhat in any room, Technoblade isn’t exactly the known jovial type - especially compared to the stone and fire. Something cold sweeps up Dream’s body and he refrains from shivering against the sudden shift.

“I remember,” Techno says.

“Then… what?”

“Absolute reciprocity.” He sounds out every syllable, long and languid. It’s irritating, Techno’s attitude, even when he’s in unfamiliar territory, is enough to make Dream want to push him into the lava. It’s like standing on his front step again, knowing that he’s hiding Tommy, but not being able to do anything about it. “I was executed and I lived. Thanks to you.”

“And I’ll probably be executed,” Dream says slowly, “and I need you to keep me alive.”

“No can do.” Techno waves a dismissive hand and Dream’s vision blurs slightly as it floats through the air. “You see, if I do that, they’ll kill me. Until I’m extremely dead. I signed a waiver.” Techno leans down slightly, like he’s confiding a secret. “I only owe you one, not three.”

Techno’s still smiling, the cold emanating from him coating the ground under his feet in ice. Dream’s head starts to hurt again and he turns away to pace, taking the opportunity to shut his eyes briefly. “What happened to ‘don’t listen to the government?’”

“When _death_ talks, I listen.”

 _Pathetic,_ Dream thinks jarringly, the reality of it coloring the word a sharp scarlet.

To fear death and still claim to be so powerful. To have the title of a god and yet bow to the natural order of things.

Death comes for everyone, but most people would argue that Techno isn’t just anyone. He’s Technoblade, the world practically worships him.

The world is wrong, as they often are.

He’s a false prophet. He’s just like all the rest.

Nothing like Dream.

“Well,” Dream says finally, turning back toward Techno, “I’ll get out eventually.”

“I doubt it,” he scoffs.

Dream frowns and his hand spasms into a curl; Techno’s beady eyes watch his fist turn into a flat palm and press against his thigh. “Why?”

“You killed Tommy.”

 _That’s it?_ “Missing your brother-in-bedrock?”

“Nah.” Techno huffs, gruff and careless, but his ear twitches slightly and Dream counts it as a victory. A wavering note in the most structured of compositions. “Everyone else is though.”

Dream had meant Tommy’s death to act as a signal, a red flag in the space of his silence. No one is safe, not even with him locked up. It wasn’t ideal, of course. He’s only in the prison because of Tommy’s failures and successes and then failures again, but it’s alright.

Dream has ways of getting Tommy back.

If Techno’s telling the truth, the people’s feelings are… interesting. Dream can’t help but wonder if he misread that room full of people from his temporary obsidian box. Niki’s distance. Phil’s absence. Tommy hadn’t seemed like everyone’s favorite person then.

Yeah, he’d managed to win Punz and Sapnap over, but Punz has always been weak to wherever the money goes and Sap’s always just been weak, period.

“It’s really depressin’.” Techno adds, only a flicker of something other than detachment making its way forward. “Everyone’s in mourning.”

Heavy clouds begin to form around Techno’s head and across the ceiling, the oncoming precipitation adding to the scent of lemon that still permeates. He seems to pay them no mind, wrapped up in his heavy cloak, but Dream, for a second, misses the cat Tommy killed.

It wasn’t as obnoxious as Tommy. The company might’ve been nice.

It had a pulse under its fur and warm blood. It's been so long since Dream was close enough to a heart to hear it beat.

“-not listening.” Techno’s voice cuts back in and Dream blinks; he can't remember if he’d asked a question and Techno has circled around the room to the back wall.

Soft white coats his shoulders as flakes cascade down from the sky and the tip of Dream’s nose feels like it’s about to freeze. He tries to subtly position himself closer to the source of light and warmth.

“Tommy’s got like, five memorials,” Techno says through a sigh, as though he’s delivering a piece of particularly devastating news. Dream watches the set of his jaw and the unbreaking stillness of his demeanor carefully.

“Do you think he deserves them?” he asks.

A noise of contemplation hums through the air. “Nobody’s really asking for my opinion.”

 _“I’m_ asking.”

“Like I said,” Techno shrugs, an almost-smile dancing across his features. “Nobody.”

With that, the pig steps back into the small water basin and the potion comes down and shatters on his head. Then he’s gone, whisked away by the prison’s intricate system, the exit door that doesn’t work for Dream. Not yet.

Dream breathes in deeply and then out, the puff of air forming into a semi-tangible figure before settling. He sits down against the lectern, tracing the shape of a T onto the frostbitten wood before scribbling it out and reaching up to rub his eyes.

_So they’ve made him a saint, huh?_

Painted him in laurel and sent the doves flying. Decided _now_ that he was someone who mattered, just as valuable as Dream has always known. They’ve built memorials in his honor, like they think that whatever he was blessed with might bless them too.

They’re even attached to the dead kid. Tommy really is a force to be reckoned with.

The echo of Techno’s voice bounces against the sides of Dream’s head as he leans forward and grabs the vegetable from before. He’d honestly rather toss it into the flames than take another bite, but he knows, in some distant part of himself, that he needs to eat to live.

Of all things, he cannot let himself starve.

He will not be labelled a savior if he dies. He is not chained to the wall, this is not a crucifixion.

If a man can't be killed, does that make him a god?

Seems like that’s the backbone of the only one the people recognize. Technoblade never dies and his visit told Dream nothing more than what he already knows. The people of his world love its linchpin, Tommy wouldn’t be anything if not for that.

At least things are going according to plan. Mostly.

Dream spits a clump of raw potato stuck in his teeth onto the ground and waits for it to stop snowing.

**Author's Note:**

> To conclude:
> 
> \- My series of prison fics is done and I am free !!  
> \- I've had this idea since Dream first got locked up so I wanted to write it even though my mojo has waned  
> \- This fic made me pass out three times I think it may be cursed like a spinning wheel  
> \- Check out my Tumblr! Same @, I just posted a stupid-long analysis about something from yesterday's streams


End file.
